Fergie, interview: ‘When I was on crystal meth, I hallucinated that the CIA and FBI were tracking me’

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As she releases her first solo album in a decade, Black Eyed Peas’ Fergie talks to Nick Levine about her drug-induced paranoia, mommy-shaming, and play dates with Kim and Kanye

Before my interview with Fergie, her PR politely insists on “no personal questions” about her recent separation from Hollywood actor Josh Duhamel. The couple only announced that their marriage had ended in September, and they have a four-year-old son, Axl, to think about. But within five minutes of meeting the Black Eyed Peas and solo singer, she has brought it up herself.

“Thank the Lord for FaceTime,” she says. “Because both Josh and I are working full-time right now. It gets tough and we get tired, but we’re trying our hardest to make sure that kid feels nothing but love.

“We wanted to find our footing with our separation before we announced it publicly – to make sure we got it together for our kid”

“I’m super-proud of [Josh]. He just wrote and directed a movie called The Buddy Games – his first directing job – so now he’s in the editing bay,” she adds.

“I’ve just released my first solo album in 11 years, and I’m out promoting it. So there’s a lot going on. That’s why we wanted to find our footing with our separation before we announced it publicly: to make sure we really got it together for our kid. It’s a constant juggling act.”

Friendly and flawlessly groomed, LA native Fergie is an open book who likes to talk. The woman born Stacy Ann Ferguson apologises several times during our interview for falling into what she calls a “vortex” – a tangential anecdote which lasts longer than her actual answer to a question. From some big stars, I’d dismiss this as an evasion tactic, but I get the sense Fergie, the voice behind huge hits such as “I Gotta Feeling” and “Big Girls Don’t Cry”, just wants me to understand where she’s coming from.

She chats enthusiastically about that new album Double Dutchess, and painstakingly explains the creative choices that led to its infamous single “MILF$” – pronounced “Milf Money”, a play on “milk money”. The video features Fergie and famous friends including Kim Kardashian and Chrissy Teigen vamping it up in a fictional, Stepford-style town called Milfville. It’s a lot of fun, but not exactly subtle. Fergie plays a “dominatrix teacher” and tips a pint of milk over herself suggestively.

“I remember Chrissy Teigen went out for dinner about two weeks after she had her kid and it was this huge mommy-shaming moment. I just found it so weird”

Today, she says “MILF$” was partly a response to the “mommy-shaming” she experienced after becoming a parent. “It’s making a statement, slapping down the rules, in a way that’s unapologetic and in your face. And I got to be cheeky with it, too.

“I remember Chrissy Teigen went out for dinner about two weeks after she had her kid and it was this huge mommy-shaming moment. I just found it so weird. I mean, the girl’s gotta eat! So what if she wants to put on some make-up and feel good about herself? Why is that so wrong?”

Well, quite. But how did she convince Kim Kardashian to shower in milk for the video? “Well, I’d taken Axl over to her house for a play-date with [Kardashian’s daughter] North,” Fergie says casually, because this is normal if you’re Fergie.

“We were all eating dinner and I was playing Kim and Kanye my music. I looked at Kim as ‘MILF$’ was playing and the idea came into my head, so I just asked her. If you say the word ‘milf’, Kim’s face and body would come up in a lot of people’s minds. It was just pretty obvious to me.”

“If you say the word ‘milf’, Kim Kardashian’s face and body would come up in a lot of people’s minds. It was just pretty obvious to me”

Music is a notoriously sexist and ageist business. Last year, Madonna complained that an older female artist will “definitely not be played on the radio”. Is this something that Fergie, now 42, is starting to worry about?

“Oh, it goes on all the time in this business. Heaven forbid that you wanna wear something that’s revealing. I work really hard for my body and I’m proud that I do. Just because you have a child or get to a certain age, it doesn’t mean you don’t wanna show off your hard work. It’s only natural.”

In the wake of Hollywood’s ongoing sexual harassment scandals, I wonder whether Fergie thinks the music industry has a similar problem. “I think every industry does. It’s just that in showbusiness, people are much more visible to the world.

“Every day, it’s another story, which is crazy. It just shows that sexual addiction in very extreme forms is out there. I don’t know what to call it other than a compulsion, where there’s this need to keep doing something even though it’s not right and it’s taking something away from someone. It’s definitely rampant.”

With our allotted time over, her PR comes in to wrap things up, but Fergie says we can carry on and rather sweetly checks that my phone is still recording. She offers me a boiled sweet from her handbag as sustenance. “These are my vice,” she says.

“At my lowest point, I was suffering from chemically induced psychosis and dementia. I was hallucinating on a daily basis. I’d just be sitting there, seeing a random bee or bunny”

In the early Noughties, Fergie’s vice was crystal meth, an addiction she beat before finding fame with Black Eyed Peas.

“At my lowest point, I was [suffering from] chemically induced psychosis and dementia. I was hallucinating on a daily basis. It took a year after getting off that drug for the chemicals in my brain to settle so that I stopped seeing things. I’d just be sitting there, seeing a random bee or bunny.”

Her hallucinations became so severe that she thought the CIA, FBI and a SWAT team were tracking her. She eventually sought solace in a church, probably on some level, she thinks, because of her Catholic upbringing.

‘I work really hard for my body and I’m proud that I do’: Fergie

“They tried to kick me out, because I was moving down the aisles in this crazy way, as I thought there was an infrared camera in the church trying to check for my body. I bolted past the altar into a hallway and two people were chasing me.

“I remember thinking: ‘If I walk outside, and the SWAT team’s out there, I was right all along. But if they’re not out there, then it’s the drugs making me see things and I’m going to end up in an institution. And if it really is the drugs, I don’t want to live my life like this any more, anyway.’ I walked out of the church; obviously there was no SWAT team, it was just me in a parking lot. It was a freeing moment.

“The drugs thing, it was a hell of a lot of fun… until it wasn’t”

“The drugs thing, it was a hell of a lot of fun… until it wasn’t. But you know what, I thank the day it happened to me. Because that’s my strength, my faith, my hope for something better.”

Not everyone would have turned themselves around, and then go on to become a super-successful singer. “It’s so incredible, I know. I think I must have guardian angels.”